The first attempt for a free-to-play MMO title on the Xbox 360 will be released this week when Happy Wars (from developer Toylogic) will hit Xbox Live for download. The game will only be open to Xbox Live Gold members.

The game is a 30-player title that is billed as a strategy/action MMO that pits two teams of fifteen players against each other as the teams attempt to take castles and mount defenses to defend their home turf. The game will offer both an offline mode as well as single player campaign mode, in addition to the multiplayer mode.

Players will be able to upgrade both equipment and outfits for their characters by collecting Happy Stars within the game, which are acquired by battle or purchasing them in the in-game store with a micro-transaction.

As we have told you previously, Microsoft will be taking its first plunge into the world of free-to-play and micro-transaction titles with the release of Happy Wars. Several other free-to-play titles are coming as the company and its partners test the water for the response to free-to-play titles on the Xbox 360.

It is yet to be seen how gamers will react to the free-to-play offerings, but if positive, we suspect that it will be a growth area for the platform going forward and featured as a pillar of the core offerings of the Xbox Next.

Microsoft is finally going to test the free-to-play model. While there were rumors that they planned to experiment with the free-to-play model previously, this never came to pass; but Microsoft has remained interested in it.

Happy Wars which was developed by Japanese developer Toylogic, and will be the first free-to-play release that will offer a microtransaction model to generate revenue. The game will only be free-to-play for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, which is not really a surprise, as that is pretty normal for Microsoft as nearly every online service requires an Xbox Live Gold account.

While Happy Wars will be the first title to come out using the free-to-play microtransaction model, it isn’t the only one that Microsoft has planned. Signal Studios is working on Ascend: New Gods which will also use the free-to-play microtransaction model; but it isn’t slated to arrive till early 2013, so Happy Wars will come out later this year.

While Microsoft has experimented with a number of free games, including the free Doritos titles, Toyota inspired Yaris, and 1 vs. 100, none of these took advantage of the microtransaction model; but the games were experiments at different types of models and marketing. Some were successful, while others were not so successful.

What remains up in the air is whether these titles will use real world currency or Microsoft Points for the microtransactions. While rumors continue that Microsoft is looking at doing away with Microsoft Points, so far the company has denied this.

Documents regarding the deal that Activision made with developer Bungie has come to light as a result of the ongoing court battle with Jason West and Vince Zampella.

According to these documents the project for the “sci-fantasy action shooter” called Destiny has a pretty detailed plan. What is surprising is that the news that Bungie would be going multi-platform in the future will not apparently apply to the first release which will apparently be an Xbox 360 or Xbox Next exclusive. Versions for other systems would follow one year later.

In addition to the four games that are included in the deal, Activision will also be getting four DLC expansion packs which are known as codename Coment, that are part of the deal. The first release will be in the Fall of 2013 with the follow up releases in 2015, 2017, and 2019. The Expansion DLC would arrive in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020.

One interesting note is that if Bungie fails to deliver, Activision can take over the Destiny property and it also stipulates that Bungie can’t start on more Destiny projects and Bungie has completed its work. Also of note is that the contract give Bungie the freedom to put as much as 5% of its staff to working a prototype game that is referred to as Project Marathon, and the size can increase as certain income levels are achieved.

Halo fans might be interested in knowing that the contract also puts restrictions on how many employees can work on Bungie.Net, Halo Reach DLC, and other projects outside of everything else.

It appears as if Nintendo’s Wii magic has worn off and the company’s horses turned into pumpkins as the company posted its first ever operating loss.

The loss lists a deficit of about $458 million for the now past business year. On a slightly lighter note, if there is one, the loss is still better than the consensus forecast, which was slightly under $512 million.

While it enjoyed a fair share of success as of late, the company’s most recent plans on Wii and 3DS sales didn’t go quite well. Strong yen didn't help either while analysts also point at smartphone and tablet markets slowly chewing away at Nintendo’s. mobile gaming share

Nintendo’s CEO Satoru Iwata conceded that he isn’t satisfied with the past year and added that EU sales of 3DS haven’t been as good as in Japan. He added that strong yen is also to blame but refused to offer more information on Nintendo’s possible reaction. However, the company expects operating profit of around $430 million, whereas consensus estimate is in the vicinity of $500 million.

Although Nintendo has ruled the mobile gaming segment for quite a while, smartphones are slowly but surely pushing it out, as recent surveys on mobile gaming habits confirm. Since it’s pretty clear by now that Wii U isn’t quite going to revolutionize the market either, it is time for Nintendo to take a step back and think long and hard about the future.

Apple's announced conference is scheduled for 13:00 GMT today and the company is expected to reveal what it will do with the $98 billion it's sitting on.

Recent comments by Apple's CEO Tim Cook suggested that the company may pay dividends to shareholders, which would be the first time since 1995. Already the year after, Apple posted a net loss of $816 million.

Speaking at an annual shareholder meeting, Cook noted that the cash is more than they need to run a company. Analysts claim Apple may pay annual dividend of up to $14.65 per share. Going by data from Friday, Apple's market value is about $546 billion.

It looks like there will be a bit of a battle between Microsoft's business chums as to who will get the first Windows 8 tablet into the shops. According to the Verge Lenovo has said that it is flat out trying to make sure that it is the first manufacturer to release" a consumer tablet running Microsoft's forthcoming operating system upgrade.

Lenovo's rumoured tablet will have an Intel chip and it might even be the IdeaPad Yoga which was seen at CES in January. If that was the case, Lenovo will have a 13.3-inch convertible that also functions as an ultrabook.

But if that it is the case it is going up against tin box shifter Michael Dell who has made a similar promise. In fact Dell is certain he can get an enterprise-targeted Windows 8 tablet "on the exact day" the OS ships.

None of them appears to have factored in that Microsoft has a new chum, Nokia, which has also said it wants to have a tablet out pretty smartish, and might be getting some help from Vole. The dark satanic rumour mill suggests that Nokia is working on a 10-inch Windows 8 tablet for release before the year is out. The maker of expensive printer ink HP and Acer are also in the running.

It will all be a close run thing. The latest date that is being touted for Windows 8 is an October 22 launch with tablets needing to be in the shops ready for the Christmas rush. This means that all of the manufacturers could have one ready in time.

It is the 40th Birthday of the world's first computer virus. In the 1950s genius mathematician John Von Neumann in the early 50s worked out that it was possible to create a self replicating piece of computer code. However no one really took that seriously after all who wanted their in basket full with penis spam.

But in 1971, Bob Thomas, an employee of a company working on building ARPANET, the Internet’s daddy, managed to write a bit of code to do just that. It was all a bit of a laugh really. Creeper looked for a machine on the network, transfers to it, displays the message “I’m the creeper, catch me if you can!” and starts over, thereby hoping from system to system.

Of course the ARPANET person did not know that his proof of concept virus would prove that computer viruses and the Internet internet go together like love and marriage. Since Creeper was written malware instances have rocketed from 1,300 in 1990, to 50,000 in 2000, to over 200 million in 2010.

A few days ago, Gainward announced the GTX 580 Phantom card, which boasts 3GB of GDDR5 memory and comes with a rather unique custom cooler with three 80mm fans, six heatpipes and a large aluminum heatsink with a copper base.

The GTX 580 Phantom card features 512 CUDA cores and works at 783MHz for the GPU, 1566MHz for shaders and 4020MHz for 3GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 384-bit memory interface.

Since many are probably interested in the cooling capabilities, we'll get to the point. Phantom GTX 580 is the quietest GTX 580 we have tested so far. When idle, the card is almost inaudible. Naturally, more intensive operation will result in more noise, but it didn't bother us the least - all you'll hear is pure airflow. Thermals are, as you can see, excellent.

The custom cooler also makes this card a bit larger so bear in mind that it takes more than two slots. The card is 10.5 inches (267 mm) long.

Since GTX 580 Phantom’s clocks are almost identical to the reference ones, consumption is roughly the same as well. The card’s minimum overclock will not significantly affect performance whereas the 3GB of memory will help only in the most extreme settings, i.e. gaming at highest resolutions and antialiasing settings. Naturally, you can always boost performance by overclocking the card yourself. Our attempts at overclocking showed that overclocking potential of Phantom cards is equal to other GTX 580 cards we’ve tested so far.

GPU voltages can be changed in Afterburner, but it seemed to us that Phantom doesn’t like high voltages – upping the voltage only further limited maximum GPU clocks. We’ll have more information on overclocking after we play with it a little more.

One thing is for sure – you’ll love Phantom’s cooler. It is not loud and performs well. Overclock of 90MHz resulted in only 6°C more on the GPU.

You will find two dual-link DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs and the card supports all the techs like Nvidia CUDA, SLI, 3D Vision Surround, PhysX and of course DirectX 11. We expect to see Gainward GTX 580 Phantom priced at about €540, although we've found it listed at as much as €630, here.